In general feed rolls are provided in the region of the platen, which feed the paper to the platen, and in the region where the paper is delivered from the platen, which rolls in cooperation with the rotatable platen conveying the paper. Between these and distributed over the periphery of the platen are arranged various guide devices fixed in relation to the platen, for example guide plates or the like, which have the task of guiding the front edge or the rear edge of the respective paper grasped by only one feed roll arrangement. A common difficulty is guiding the paper in the print region of the platen or applying the platen against the paper. A conventional guide device cannot be provided, since this would cover the print region of the platen and thereby make any printing impossible.
A consequence of this poor guiding in the print region is that when a new sheet of paper is grasped, it is occasionally lifted off of the platen in the print region and hooks onto parts of the printer, especially the print element arrangement. Also, even when the paper follows the platen, it does not lie against the platen tightly enough when it is not being grasped by both feed roll arrangements and stretched around the platen. Hence in the conventional printing or recording apparatus it is necessary to leave a fairly broad edge unprinted on both the top and the ends of the sheet, since paper lying only loosely against the platen would give an untidy, imprecise printed image.